


Caurica

by Guts



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-01-18
Updated: 2014-03-24
Packaged: 2017-10-29 17:56:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 4,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/322582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guts/pseuds/Guts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Is that the kind of thing you think you might be into?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

white as the rocks you grew up on, he is a squirming, itching mess with gears in his magma pits and magma pits in his eyes, His fingers bruise carmine in the cold as he bends low at the waist, catching a frog.

“Harley I know im the fairest in the land but can you not stare like youre gunna get your henchman to gut me for you” he squints at you in the cold, his nose not dribbling and yours a water faucet. there is a reason coolkids are coolkids.

“Whatever!!!” you laugh, a frog under each arm and reaching for the violet one by his foot.

You never really felt the cold in your bones the way they say, you are strong and healthy and the snow is little more than a pinch to your cheek and a sting to your eye.

Dave complains about it non stop, and when he stops; touches his shoulders and harpoon elbows like a blind man trying to see, you think if he could he would reach into his bones and fling them out.

sometimes you are very sad for him.

 

he looks lost and alone, blunt, long fingers gripping his arms. You desperately want to hug him, let him know he is not alone.

but that is ridiculous, Dave is the coolest. Coolest of the ice cube pack in the middle of the Antarctic. you feel the cold in your bones but it’s the ache to love him. to make him be a something more than an empty shell boy.

 

You walk over and hug him from behind. He doesn’t flail and he doesn’t freeze. He just stills, as you cry into his back, and hug him so tightly you barely notice him holding your hand. you want to think you’re crying for him but you know you’re crying because you have that terrible feeling in your bones and heart and head that you are only asleep and that somewhere far away Dave feels alone.


	2. And the Seasons Will Change us New

This crayon world is a festering, burbling lava sea.

It makes Jade’s skin sweat and burn, even with her usual temperance to the heat.   
Space keeps her stomach in a constant thrall, the stars pining in her organs.   
“This is really nice!!!” she tries to make it bright, but it comes out gruff and a little exasperated.  
“Lots of…um. Magma.” 

Nope, strike two.   
“The red is cheery!!!” Home base, the crowd cheers. 

“Downright excited, aint ya.” Dave drawls, his eyes reflecting the lava like water under his murky glasses.   
“How do you honestly stand it, Dave?? Its really hot!!” And the baseball game is destroyed by pure honesty, but give her a break. She already lost four or five colored strings because her hands are so dang sweaty!  
“Ain’t no thing.” Dave replies, looking over the cogs rising and the steam billowing from his perch on the rusted metal above her.   
For further explanation, he offers, “Its kind of like a manly sauna, where all the neighborhood fatties chill and talk about cars. But its just me, and the conversation doesn’t really encompass mechanics.”   
He kind of gets lost in thought about it, and Jade really cant help but stare.

If they were an anime, she would probably be the nerd boy who falls for the beautiful princess. 

She feels so much, and most of those feelings are a shitty copy of The Notebook. She wants to laugh with him with his glasses half across the room and his eyes   
squinted. She wants to jump in his arms and tell him she’ll be anything he is, even if he’s a sweltering teenage boy in a volcano pit.

Okay, time to work those charms. 

“Hey Dave!”

“NarcolepticGnostic.” 

Well that was kind of mean, but you are a smooth operator and cannot be deterred.   
“Can you come down here??” You smile in what you hope is not an overly excited way and gesture at the molten rock you are standing on.   
You are going to kiss him.   
Right on the lips, dammit.

 

He is falling in a dangerous motion, but it soothes into a stylized drop. He is right by you, his nose bumping into yours and his breath holding you, his hands gripping your naked elbows where your sleeves are rolled. 

Your hands tremble a little as you take his glasses off,  
“Just like your animes, Right?” He laughs, and you reach up until your eyes are giving each other butterfly kisses and press your mouth against his.   
It is exactly like your animes. 

“If you’re a sweaty teenage boy in a volcano pit, then I’m a sweaty teenage boy in a volcano pit.” 

“What.”


	3. I write more postcards than hooks.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is really difficult for me??? i accidentally deleted two chapters and two comments? Grahahahhaghh. Life is hard!!!!

Jade has a million scars, you used to think you were big business with your nicks and saw toothed stripes but damn, girls got gnarly back.   
Youre pretty sure she got freaky with a machete when she first showed you her stomach. A burn on her hip the size of texas, a twisting scar that seeps outward in the darkest pink. There are small cuts everywhere on her, they crease on her perfect little knuckles and dig around her neck.   
When asked, she shrugs and grins with her stupid teeth   
“I lived on an island, okay!!!! Jeeze!!!”  
“Bec and I like to rassle!!!”  
“I fell down a lot! Sometimes down cliffs!!!”  
“I fell in sticker bushes every year until I learned how to walk!!!!”

Okay, Dave knows that last one is bullshit. But the whisper of a doubt is still there.  
Who is this vicious little female with her torn up skin and her protruding teeth?  
You want to hold her in your arms too tightly but you don’t know her. 

You cant read her like other people, and you are Edward Cullen mulling over his hot plush rump prey.  
You see the way she cringes away from roses hugs sometimes but jumps at her other times  
.  
Hungry and starving for arms around her, but unsure of how to get them there. 

You were in love with her by the time you are twelve. You used to go with your bro to these fancy, gritty clubs, right?  
And these beautiful people would strut by like they weren’t fucking clouds and gossamer.   
You would sit there on the stool sipping apple juice in a martini glass, and sweating to your bro’s beats.   
And they would have legs that would go on and on, they went on after you blinked. Hair piled high and skin slick as satan’s ass.   
None of them take your heart and put it in a drawstring the way Jade does. Even when Terezi presses up against you and you’re in her face and her hair curves into your shoulder, it doesn’t hurt your head like Jade does. 

You know a lot about her, because you don’t know how to touch, and you cant relax into someone else touching you. It worries and bothers at you,   
she sends you acoustic songs of her wailing about the sea.  
You send her the one you’ve been working on for a year and cant bear to check messages until two days after.

She breaks you down like a kitten begs for attention. 

You are older now, and she is an ugly, beautiful thing, you cant look at. Her hair to her hips and her hips too skinny to notice. She still climbs tree’s when she thinks no one is looking and you still help her down when she gets stuck. 

You’ve got closets and closets of dirty secrets but she is your worst. You keep her away so you don’t break your bones loving her.   
You would probably break her bones, you realize.

You have so many feelings, dammit. 

You are a cosmopolitan journalist writing stories about her feelings for tea cup poodles. Poodles she wants to kiss.   
You abort the train of thought and jump off like an old west, train villain.   
She is coming over in minus two seconds and your ears perk up at her knock on the door and the sound of her scuffling walk minutes away.  
It has been five years since you last saw this girl.  
Your name is Dave Strider.   
You are telling Jade how you feel.


	5. And you came in like the tide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And If your friends don't read paxlux, they ain't no friend of mine.

She splashes in his tub late at night, like hes keeping a mermaid in his apartment, secret, a giggling thrum of hair and wet cheekbones.

Her slated, wet eyes are closing slightly, and she has a cigarette between her drowsy teeth.

He knocks gently on the door and she makes to get up, but startles down and smiles sleepily at him. Her wet undershirt is white and transparent, the bare outlines of her gold arms and collarbone under her wool vest. 

“How long you stayin’?” he asks, not looking at her. She smiles a bit and dunks her head down to peer warily at him with her eyes above the surface.   
She laughs as she jumps to a sitting position, bubbling and gargling and shakes her head. The wet strands hit him in the shoulder where hes crouching beside her.  
she doesnt know.

“Me either.” He tells her and tilts her head back to wash her hair.

Her eyes dart away from his, and Jade takes her cigarette and puts it between his lips. 

The hands that cradle her head are long fingered and flat with the bones and rivets of knuckles stuck through. 

He breathes out smoke, and it circles her head. It fills the bathroom with the warm, sharp bite of her tabacco.   
She thinksof her grandfather smoking hispipe thoughtfully on the dock, playing records on theportable record player. Sighing as he thinks of things he keeps to himself, his eyes misty on his old photographs.

The edges are burnt andworn and soft to the touch, he feathered them down her nose and she sneezed and laughed.  
She blinks now, eyes heavy as dave cards through her roping hair. 

“Didn’t leave nobody but the baby,” he is humming low and deep in his throat.

“She’s long gone with her red shoes on.” His voice is growling and quiet and she relaxes into it, he puts the last drags of the cigarette in her wet fingers and she draws a shaky breath.

She draws up, quickly and animal and wild and presses a soft, vicious kiss to the inside of his jaw.  
He blinks down at her, soft and amused with his dusty eyelashes.

“Come and lay your bones on the Alabaster stones, and be my everloving baby.” He is whispering to her, rinsing her hair.

She closes her eyes and slips out of his hands to submerge herself. She looks up at him through the cracked light and ripples, he looks down with his crinkling eyes and hard laugh. 

She wants to stay here forever, in the bath, with his hands making mad dashes for the soap as it slips between her shoulder blades. He gets up to start the coffee and she comes up, drawing deep breaths. 

Her hair floats around her as she falls to her back and lights another cigarette.


	7. I want a lover I dont have to love

He doesn’t remember if she drinks, but he sets gin out, leftover from Roses visit. His apartment is stark white and accented with red, red red everything. Its like a hospital that’s overrun with lava. He likes that.   
His palms aren’t sweaty and his knees are definitely   
not knocking together ever so slightly as he gets up to answer the door.  
“I brought muffins!” She says from outside his door, muffled by the wood and he finds, an oversized scarf.   
“Don’t think a tantrums out of the question if theyre bran.” Is all he can say. He is so lame, but his breath kind of just escaped his chest and his mind blanked when he opened the door.

She is still Jade, but somewhere in India, or Bolivia or one of her travels, she lengthened out and lost the baby fat in her cheeks and the sweetness in her eyes.   
“Unfair!!!! Bran is the worst flavor and I would not subject any cool kid to it!” she exclaims, right on cue. But his eyes are still stuck on her hands. She tinkles as she walks, thin, metal bells around her ankles.   
She jingles past him, wrestles her packages and the enormous 12 pack of muffins (poppy seed) onto the counter. She takes a horrible dayglo travel cup from her jacket and slugs down a cup of gin.

“Go shave.” She says. 

He goes and shaves. 

And puts deodorant on. And cologne, he didn’t really change his clothes, just his pants and shirt. And maybe, possibly puts chapstick on. She had the fattest crush on Edward Cullen, and he is ready and willing to use that.   
He comes out of the bathroom, rubbing his chin a little ruefully and finds her with her legs crossed, unwrapping her fourth muffin from the looks of the others remains on the floor. The gin bottle is half empty. 

“Are you getting drunk?!” He asks, trying to keep disbelief below numero five on the scale.  
She hiccups and looks at him sweetly,  
“Drunk?” Jade echoes, smiling and accidently drops her cup on the floor.   
She proceeds to cover it in a cozy blanket of puke.

“Hot.” Is all Dave can really say. 

And then she gets it in her hair and he contemplates telling her she looks smokin’ but he sneaks up behind that thought and kind of gently strangles it. 

he wrangles her into the shower with promises of looking at puppies on the internet afterwards and yes, he will be her best friend forever, wipe your nose.   
He is coaxing her head under the faucet when she sits bolt upright and looks him straight in his eyes.

“I loved you.” She says and she looks so intent, so fucking clear that he cant help but smile.  
“What are you saying?” Dave asks, and blinks slow and hard.   
“I would like to love you now!” She says tearfully,   
“But I don’t want you to feel pressured!!! I am kind of drunk and-“ She cuts herself off, rubbing her hand hard against her eyes.  
“Ive been so tired!! And when I see you, when I would see you, It was like returning to the place I could relax into. Like a native tongue!!” She is blurting these things and one of her long, long brown hands is grasping at his collar. Her little, rough nails pressing at his collarbone.  
She is dagger fast and puts her face right by his, 

“Dave. “ She says his name with her rough voice and that scalding highness from how much emotion shes having. He cant do this, this is what he has always wanted.  
He cant no no non  
She is kissing him, her mouth acid and hot on his.  
She palms the side of his face and he hears himself make a sad, quiet whine into her mouth.  
She is so fucking perfect, even an hour and a half drunk and already confessing feelings hes unsure are real. Her black hair strings around his fingers when he touches her hip.

She makes a small sound and he really shouldn’t,

He breaks them apart in what feels like years, mouth slightly parted.   
His body is heavy and acrid angry with want.  
“I think you should go.” He might as well have growled it, for how deep his voice dips.  
Her eyes well, and she puts her hands over her face.

“Aw hell,” Dave says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for some reason Dave just deadpanning "hot" when jade spews her guts is hilarious to me????=weeps=


	8. smash

She is staying in his home.  
She is staying in the pile of shit he calls a house.   
She's throwing out his cigarettes, drinking his beer, watching sports and burping in his face. 

And he cant say anything because he wants to say everything. 

She's got dental work that needs dental work and muddy eyes and   
he could go on, oh god, he could go on and on.  
spit out a book about what he feels.  
But its been a month and nothings farther from reality than his feelings. 

'Breach the shore, soldier.'   
'fucking do it you piece of shit.'  
"So,"  
He says, completely casual, completely cool,   
"How DID you get here, and why?"  
His voice gets a little pitchy at the end, but he doesn't think she notices.

She still's a little and turns her profile an inch to more or less face him.   
"Its like this!"  
She says,   
weaving her hands out in a square shape, as if to capture the picture, project the image. 

But thats always as far as she gets.   
Every damn time. 

She always just ends up tricking him!  
He's not Rose Lalonde, no sir, definitely not sir.  
But that, that right there is just avoiding everything,   
like literally taking the wheel of the car and saying 'detour to california kids' and just doing a u-turn on the freeway, basically. 

She always just kisses his neck and everything on his end is static, all bright.  
Or she says something about John, yes but no.   
No but yes. 

She asks if he still feels things, and he is still a little miffed at having his virtue so cleanly and quickly derailed that he huffs a  
'what do you mean?'

her face drops a little, but she smiles at him, squinting, wide and says "When did we meet?  
And he feels like a calculator, a computer, a metal detector with a heart with the way he has a number to the exact second in his head,   
the moment she says it. 

But he plays dumb, plays coy, says   
"What, is Earth still your mood ring, Miss thing?"  
And she says she IS miss thing, actually! thank you very much!  
she asks him to kindly not shit on the title and he snorts, then actually laughs.  
She's grinning and putting her leg on his lap. 

"What actually happened?" He asks, hes feeling fond and soft and sort of gross.  
"Like, when did you even start shaving? When'd you start caring about the birds living in your hair? Last I saw , you were four foot and ninety pounds, most of which was your body hair.   
"

She blushes lightly, under her skins color.   
"Things happen!" she shrugs. 

"When'd you get that butt!" And she is touching his butt omg   
fuck abort abort everything abort life omg  
You're vaguely aware of blushing and choking a little but you sputter out,  
"This old thing??"

wow.  
You are the shoujo manga.   
It is you.


	9. Chapter 9

"She's like the wind." You say to Rose, who sits, but somehow sits somewhat skeptically on your couch.  
"Tell me more, for I am what you would call 'Insane for Swayze'. Rose says dryly, picking an impossibly long strand of hair from the couch.

"Its 'Crazy for Swayze'" you say, muffled where you lie on the couch, your ankles brushing Roses thigh.  
"Shut up." Rose says primly. "But go on."

"Well, it started when pops brought me to this dancing camp, and there was this super built dance instructor named Jade Swayze, and lets just say, I had the time of my life."

"Did she tell you how all the old, sugar mommies just smelled so GOOD, Baby?"

"Yeah. Totes, we danced a rumble or whatever with her pops watching and then I sat in a chair and pulled a cord and water-"  
"Wrong movie." 

"Oh. Huh."  
"Dave," Rose says seriously, meeting your eyes.  
"Be frank with me, just what the hell is going on?"  
You break the contact and sigh, flopping onto your back.

Jade is gone, teaching dog's yoga or swim instructing horses or whatever she does.  
Rose arrived very early, when you were just going to bed.  
At your door with color coordinated outfit, luggage and smile. 

"Its..I don’t really-I'm not sure." You settle on finally. 

"She wont tell me anything."

Rose hmm's at the other end of the couch,  
"Tell me more, tell me more, like did she have a car?" She sing-songs. 

"Hey! What was that about being frank, doc.” You humph. 

“Dave. I will be frank with you, if I may.”  
You roll your eyes,  
“Well gee Rose, don’t mind if you do.”  
“We have all changed significantly since-“ She pauses and you look at her,  
Your burnt out almost sister, who even looking like a drowned cat from fatigue and world weariness, is a beautiful drowned cat with a black manicure and beautiful skin.  
“Say it.” You say edgily, scratchy. 

“Shan’t.” Rose sighs.  
“Psychology 101 Rosa, whoever denied it supplied it.”

“More like Immaturity 101, thank you Dave.” Rose wrinkles her nose.  
“If I may finish, we are very different. Its not that Jade is not Jade. But considering you have not seen her for the amount of time you have, or I for that matter, I would net get considerably comfortable with her at this time.” Rose looks down, as if finished, but opens her mouth again. 

"It will drive you crazy, if you let it, in my opinion. Its not an easy thing to live with, and we do not know how she has adjusted."

It’s true.  
After it happened, the thing, the end, Rose wrapped herself around you like a blanket for months on end, and you both would say you were saved.  
John came over and played videogames emptily a lot, and finally laughed until he sobbed and covered his face with his broad hands. 

You and Rose had tickled him and joked him and teased him back, it took a year.  
You would never give it back. 

But Jade dropped off the edge.

No phone, no e-mail, no letters, no face. 

She was gone. John had lamented her and wracked his brain for where he had brotherly gone wrong, and Rose worried in her own way and you had felt sad about it.

But what can you do? Really, in the end of it all.  
Licking your own wounds and your friends licking theirs, and the world a mess of ants, swarming, filling the interstate veins over and six fold.

One of the ants has great, crazy hair that curls in the damp and hopelessly deep skin.  
A weird metaphor!

You decide.  
Rose is making herself coffee, she bends low at the waist, and her bones stick out a little.

“You should eat more!” you yell across the room at her.  
“You should mind your business more, you great galoot.” She calls back and comes back with coffee for the both of you, to poke at your stomach fondly.  
“You great fatty.”  
She pats your head.  
A testament for Rose Lalonde.

“You magnificent scallywag.”  
She tweaks your nose.  
Is it even Rose Lalonde? 

“You are very tangled up with someone you know very little about.” She says quietly, her hand on your cheek, the other supporting her chin.  
“Be careful. “

“Yeah.” You say, but both feet are firmly planted in the great yarn tangle that is Jade Harley.  
Both arms, one head and your skinny chest.


	10. I'm high as a kite; I just might stop to check you out

"The problem is!" Jade says brightly.

She's sitting on your lap as you attempt to play Xbox, but you've always been shit at it, and you're basically just trying to impress her, so.  
"What." You say, not making eye contact.

"Is that you think you're such tough shit, and you act all 'Bluh, look at me, I'm cool, so cool'." She does a shitty imitation of your voice and uses her hands to make pinched, talking shapes. 

 

"Uh, I am tough shit. Read the memo's." You say. And as you say this, you get your head blown off in your game.  
She snorts, and squishes your face in her hands.  
"Shush. Shut the great, cavity that is flapping in the wind called your mouth."  
"Its like this!!"  
Her hands like strings, puppet mouth open.

"It should be like this!!!" Puppet mouth closed. 

You bite her fingers and she laughs loud.

"I'm just, kind of tired? I guess?" You say, sort of trying the words out, out loud on your tongue.

Rose has had you figured out from day one, and John never really cared.

You cam be brusque, and difficult and insulting.

But to some extent, its who you are.

Saying this out loud for the first time, jangled and hard on your tongue like its holding on, is like telling someone you love them.

Saying 'take care' to your bro. 

Explaining yourself to anyone is exhausting, you'd rather surround them with insults,

1 2 3

and have them pick their poison. 

"So sleep." Jade says, getting huffy. Not understanding what you're not saying. 

Who is she, though, to ask you to explain yourself?

Who is she really?

Part of you,

the reasonable part,

says she's your friend, someone who kisses you on the mouth in the mornings and is warm and solid

in your life.

But the other part spits out, that she left you alone for a week like an underfed cat left to fend for itself. 

Did God knows what and who, and came back sort of sober, with a cut that is healing on her jaw.

She dodged everything you asked her, and jumped you in the shower, later. 

And you don't need her, you're a damn adult.

You're a fucking adult. 

But you want to.

You want to let yourself.

But she wont talk to you, and you have to try and accept it,

"Respect it, okay??" 

She had said, her eyes getting that terrible shine they do when she's upset.

"Just do it, Dave. For me."

Whatever.

You're sick of this shit, sick of your own shit.

"You know, the more you hurt people, the less they'll try to stick around." You say evenly. 

And shrug 

it's cool it's cool 

it's chill

chill as penguins waddling in the north pole. South pole? You're getting off track.

"Well, I won't. Okay?" She says gently. Sticks her nose on your neck like a dog and holds you.

"You already did. Twice." You grate and in one huge, grand motion, she leaves you, wrenches herself off and slams the door hard enough to rattle it.

"Fuck." You say out loud.

"FUCK." Again, just to hear yourself, your voice, alone in your shitty apartment. Exactly how it should be.

How it deserves to be.


	11. Chapter 11

Tuesday, six oh clock on the nose, it comes.

Like a sharp, sudden knock on your door-  
Oh, shit, no. That was an actual knock on your door.  
You gotta stop narrating this shit.   
Anyways, you sort of sludge through the trash and clothes and every few steps, a pizza box.  
it's been downhill for awhile.   
Downhill with no one to punch you in the ass to do the dishes or fight with you and break your favorite plate and apologize.   
Like, literally punch you in the ass.  
And in the back of your head, you're saying to yourself,  
"Yeah, good. You had to wait, I've been waiting here for fucking days." But you catch yourself, because maybe she left because you're a little pushy, little terrible, little demanding.  
You're taking your sweet ass time, is what you're getting at here.

You open the door and try to look slouched and prepared.

The result is looking like your bones have liquified and a really grim look on your mouth.  
Whatever,  
"Hey," you say, but before you can say shit, anything, you are very steadily socked in the jawline.  
"Sorry 'bout that, my aim is pretty shit." You say from the doorway, shaking your hand out.

It's you.   
At the door, your blonde hair grimy, and your fist reddening.   
"I was aiming for more, your nostril area." You say,   
you are laying on the floor, and you feel a little, hot trickle in your mouth where he made contact with your cheek and pushed it into the surface of your teeth. 

"What,"  
You try to get up, but you're swaying a bit.

"What the bleeding-"   
"Yeah, I'm sorry, I guess. Got a lot of self hate issues here, I mean have you seen our thighs? Drop the chocolate, before you ruin us."   
He's not blinking in that way you know you do, sort of.   
"What the bleeding fuck are you doing in my apartment?" You finally screech.

 

"No time." It says, eyes crinkling.   
He takes your hand, fast, fast.   
Puts it around his neck.  
Your own dumb neck.  
"He's coming." Other you says. 

"Do it fast." He says, his teeth showing. 

"Who? Who?" You say, sounding more and more like a frenzied mother at a supermarket calling her child. 

"What is going on?!? This is bullshit man, barging in here, suicide threats. I think I should be clued in here." You snap, his hand on your wrist that is pressing your fingers tight go slack.

"Look," He says finally, something shining in those bloody eyes.  
Fear, you think. 

"It's the Alpha. You, but bigger, badder, final boss without any competition." He swallows thickly.

"He knows about us, Dave."   
"I didn't even know about us until just damn now, and-" His words are catching up,  
"What-what are we then?" You ask, and you take a huge breath.

"No offense, big guy, but I think you know. " He looks away. 

"Prototypes." You say and then you fucking run.


End file.
